Should your next move be into a Corporate or an SME?

By Chris Daems

Chris Daems is the director of Principal Financial Solutions, a small financial planning practice based in the city of London.  During his career, Chris worked for a number of large financial institutions before setting up his own business.  Chris’s experience is working with both medium sized businesses and high net worth individual clients.

Let’s assume you’re looking for your next opportunity to develop your career and feel that you can’t fully utilise your skills in your current role. Let’s also assume you have two opportunities on the table, one with a large corporate organisation and another with a medium sized niche practice. A natural assumption is that the opportunities, potential career progression and scope of work within the corporate environment would be greater due to the size of the organisation. Whilst on many occasions these assumptions are correct, is it worth considering looking at the smaller business?

Personally, I’ve been on both sides of the fence. I now run a small financial planning business but have worked for large corporate organisations for the majority of my career.

How does the corporate environment compare with working within a SME practice environment? 

Well, I don’t believe I would have launched my business without having the training, development and supportive environment of a large business. I also think that if you are at the early stages of your career, a larger corporate environment tends to provide more support in helping develop your skills than a smaller niche professional practice can.

However, and I’m sure it depends on the culture of the business you work in, I reached a stage in my career when I wanted to broaden my portfolio of skills, build my own long term professional relationships and start to develop my own systems and practices.  In my experience, taking this element of control can be particularly tough in a corporate environment and it tends to be easier to develop as a professional (once a certain level of competence has been achieved) in a smaller niche practice.

Within my business we encourage our staff to share ideas, take on new projects, develop new business opportunities and suggest changes to our systems to make the way we work more efficient. This culture was developed based on my frustration of working within a large corporate where sometimes that creativity was stifled.  Therefore the question I believe you need to ask yourself is, does the opportunity you are considering offer the opportunities, flexibility and scope to build as a professional?    

 

Are you looking for a new opportunity in accounting or know someone who is? Have you worked with an SME or a Corporate and want to share your thoughts and experience? Got a question for Chris? 

Feel free to leave your questions and comments below.

 

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Newly ACA qualified Chartered Accountant?

By Harriot Bishop

Harriot joined Marks Sattin after graduating from Southampton with a BA in Geography. She joined the Professional Services division as part of the Newly Qualified Accounting Team. Harriot specialises in sourcing accountants with 0-1years PQE from the leading accountancy practices for opportunities across Financial Services, Commerce & Industry and Professional Services. She has become an expert in providing career advice and guidance to this market sector whilst becoming respected internally for an extensive pool of high calibre   candidates.  

Astronaut? Princess? Ballerina? Probably once upon a time. There aren’t many, but unfortunately those are a few of the things that an ACA qualified candidate is a little under-qualified for.

With results released only a month ago, and the new years resolutions made along the lines of “2012 will be the year I get a new job”, January sees an influx of CVs and phone-calls to recruitment firms. The only issue being that after three years of blood, sweat and tears, the newly qualified accountants are often clueless as to what they actually want to be now they’ve “grown up”.

New payment technology – a legacy of great change in finance

By Katy May

Katy May joined Marks Sattin as part of the Change Management team in July 2011 with a specific focus in Operations Change. Prior to this she has worked within the Financial Services industry for 4+ years building extensive relationships with Front, Middle and Back Offices across financial institutions within London, Spain and Portugal. Her background and experience lies primarily within the Fixed Income and Derivatives space, although she has built a good knowledge base across all asset classes, trade flows and operational processes. 

It’s not only British athletes who are looking to leave a lifelong legacy at London’s 2012 Olympic and Paralympic games – games sponsors Visa and Samsung are striving to use their mobile payments technology for the sporting event to leave a lasting legacy in the market for banks, retailers, mobile operators and consumers. But what impact will their efforts for long-term change in the way we use mobile payments and the efforts of suppliers of other new payment methods alike, have on banking and payments?

Tips for newly qualified ACA’s

By Daniel Handley

Daniel Handley is a consultant within Handle Recruitment's finance division recruiting into the Music, Media, Entertainment and Lifestyle Brands sectors. He has 8 years Financial Recruitment experience, 5 spent managing a qualified & interim desk and now recruiting permanent positions to CFO level.

When it comes to making the daunting move out of practice into industry, your post-qualified accountancy career can take any number of paths. However getting the right first step is immensely important.  

The initial step into the industry can shape your post-qualified career, therefore I would always advise on keeping breadth in your role until you work out where your career is heading.  ACA’s are, on the whole technically competent but still require on-the-job experience in management accounting, budgeting, forecasting and planning. Obtaining this exposure whilst keeping the technical aspects until you know exactly where you are heading will ensure you don’t miss out on opportunities due to a lack of experience in a specific area.  

An accountant's role in a dynamic environment

By Martin Finch 

Martin is an experienced accountant with expertise in reporting in  UK GAAP and IFRS. Martin also has significant systems experience having implemented SAP at his current employer.   Prior to his current role he worked in public practice on a varied portfolio of clients ranging from PLCs to not for profit and charitable organisations.

In the current economic climate many companies and indeed the Government itself are more focussed than ever on operational costs. Accountants tend to be very comfortable recording, controlling and accounting for costs within the business but the value of the work completed by accountants and the potential for accountants to add value to a business often goes un-noticed. A focus removal of non value adding steps (and costs) from business processes will inevitably mean that unless accountants successfully adapt to be seen as value adding, at some point the accountant themselves will be the target for cost reductions.

Accountancy Market Update from Robert Half

By Russell Brown, Associate Director, Robert Half UK

Now may not seem like the ideal time to be job hunting but - despite the headlines - there are some bright spots for accounting and finance professionals. The economic uncertainty of the past few years has actually raised the profile of accountants, from back room bean counters to key players at the decision-making table.

Companies are focusing on central needs

The job market for accountants is outperforming other areas of the general job market, with companies hiring professionals to address growth initiatives and manage increasing workloads, often the result of understaffed departments. Hiring managers are looking for candidates who have not only solid technical accounting expertise but also the necessary commercial skills to improve efficiencies throughout the organisation, address budget concerns and drive new business opportunities. Companies need staff to manage and support these initiatives. 

Managing the costs of sickness absence in 2012

By John Richardson

John Richardson joined Alexander Lloyd in 2003. As a Senior Manager leading the Accountancy & Finance divisions he personally maintains a client database recruiting senior finance professionals within the Accountancy & Finance sector. He specialises in the recruitment of qualified level Financial Directors and Controllers for both blue chip and SME clients, and  niche roles such as tax/treasury and corporate finance and audit.

Sickness absence is a very well recognised issue within the work place today, with new reports coming out seemingly every week on the severity of the issue and the costs to the economy; £13bn at the last count.  However, less well known and documented, particularly in the UK, is the problem of sickness presenteeism.  Defined as the loss of productivity when employees come to work when they are unfit to do so and perform below par as a result of their illness, it is estimated that the cost of presenteeism to the economy is a staggering £19.5bn.  The biggest cause of sickness absence has been cited recently by the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development as stress, a complaint that accountants are no stranger to, particularly during the fast approaching year-end period.

How not to hit a ‘Glass Ceiling’

By Billy Bradley

Billy joined Marks Sattin in September 2011 via the Graduate Scheme. He focuses specifically on placing Part Qualified accountants within Commerce & Industry, in areas such as Media, Publishing, Advertising, PR and FMCG. He is currently working with clients such as Expedia, Estee Lauder and M & C Saatchi, along with a number of SME clients.

A ‘Glass Ceiling’ can be described as an unofficial barrier to workplace advancement. The glass ceiling metaphor has often been used to describe invisible barriers through which candidates can see senior positions but cannot reach them. Employees studying towards their CIMA or ACCA can get to the point where they believe they have achieved all that they can within a current position despite knowing that they have much more potential. At this point they can clearly see the next level of progression or promotion, yet despite their best efforts, an invisible barrier seems to be stopping them from proceeding. 

Tips for Accountancy Graduates

By David Carter

Dave joined Marks Sattin via the graduate scheme in September 2011, after achieving a 2:1 in Geography and Economics at Loughborough University. He works specifically within Commerce & Industry, focusing particularly on the Retail, Fashion, FMCG, and Consumer Product Industries. 

Since joining the company he has already worked with Random House Publishing, Guoman and Thistle Hotels, amongst numerous other smaller clients.

With an invaluable range of opportunities on offer, a career in accountancy is an attractive career prospect to high numbers of graduates. But in order to pursue that career what do you need to do? And what are the options available?

Getting your foot in the accountancy door as a graduate means you get to start out in an exciting environment perfect for graduates! But the option to work internationally, gain professional qualifications and last but not least earn a good salary is only achievable with hard work and determination.

There are two distinct routes to take when entering into accountancy – Practice or Industry.

PQ Magazine ‘Personality of the Year’ 2012

Nominations are open for the PQ Magazine Awards, the the top networking event for part qualified accountants. This is their ninth year running, and this year GAAPweb are supporting our 'Personality of the Year' category.

There are 13 award categories and all shortlisted nominees will receive an invitation to the awards night on 21 February 2012, at Quaglino's in London.

To nominate a PQ Accountant (this may be yourself, a colleague or a lecturer), please send in a 250 word entry on why you believe they deserve to win.

Email: awards@pqmagazine.com or

OR

Post to: PQ Magazine Awards, 4th Floor, Central House, 142 Central Street, London EC1V 8AR.

Deadline for nominations is Friday 13 January 2012.